Appeal No. 96-0724
Application No. 07/817,232
Nieduzak et al. (Nieduzak) “Multigram Lipase-Catalyzed
Enantioselective Acylation in the Systhesis of the Four
Stereoisomers of a New Biologically Active "-ARYL-4-
PIPERIDINEMETHANOL DERIVATIVE” Tetrahedron: Asymunetry Vol. 2,
No. 2, p. 113-122 (1991)
Wong et al. (Wong) EP 0357009 Feb.
1990.
The appealed claims stand rejected for obviousness
(35 U.S.C. § 103) over the above cited references. We cannot
sustain the stated rejection.
Essentially, it is the examiner’s position that one of
ordinary skill in this art would have been motivated to
combine the teachings of the cited references “for the use of
a particular enzyme for the hydrolysis of an ester or
esterification of alcohols” because the prior art enzymes
“would be similarly useful and applicable to the analogous
process for
esterification of alcohols and hydrolysis of esters,” as
claimed (Answer, page 5).
The problem with the examiner’s approach to the
obviousness determination here is both factual and legal.
Although the examiner has cited prior art references which
disclose analogous reactants used to produce analogous
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